


You can never go home again.

by be_a_rebel



Category: History Boys (2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-22
Updated: 2011-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-17 05:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_a_rebel/pseuds/be_a_rebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Irwin isn’t like that. Irwin isn’t easy, he isn’t easily charmed, he isn’t easy in any shape or form.</p><p>And halfway through that drink, Dakin decides it isn’t worth it anyway. Irwin isn’t worth it Whatever it was that made him lose his mind back in the day, it’s disappeared now. So he makes inane conversation, cracks a few unremarkable jokes just to see if it’ll make things different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You can never go home again.

It’s not as easy as Dakin expected it to be.

That’s always been the problem, he supposes. He’s always expected things to be simple. He doesn’t want them to be, or need them to be.

They just are.

But Irwin isn’t like that. Irwin isn’t easy, he isn’t easily charmed, he isn’t easy in any shape or form.

And halfway through that drink, Dakin decides it isn’t worth it anyway. Irwin isn’t worth it Whatever it was that made him lose his mind back in the day, it’s disappeared now. So he makes inane conversation, cracks a few unremarkable jokes just to see if it’ll make things different.

It doesn’t. So he pays for Irwin’s drink while Irwin’s in the bathroom and thinks about how Scripps (whom he hasn’t seen in years) would call him a cheap date and he straightens his jacket and smiles at the brunette in the corner who’s been eyeing him for the past half hour.

He can walk Irwin out and slip back in. It’ll take five minutes.

Irwin walks out of the bathroom and smiles.

It takes much longer.

*

The point is, it’s not easy at all.

Irwin isn’t what he was when Dakin was a kid himself. He’s quieter, more serious, more angry. He doesn’t appreciate being dropped in on at ten in the morning or nine at night, or well, anytime really.

He smiles at people he sees in the street and it’s so damn fake that Dakin recoils.

He still pushes Dakin though. That’s the part that hasn’t changed.

The sex is…interesting. Dakin is surprised to find that he almost likes it better with Irwin then he does with most women.

He isn’t gay though. There has only been Irwin. Dakin is pretty sure there will only be Irwin.

Here are the surprising things. Irwin is a slob. He leaves books and clothes and socks and shoes everywhere. He only cleans when fungus develops. He owns seven pairs of glasses and makes a new pair every month because he misplaces them all. He loves chocolate and hates tennis and hides from Mrs. Sanborn, the lady who lives in the apartment next to his, every single day. He’s not a morning person and he’s grumpy right before he goes to bed.

They fight all the time. Dakin isn’t surprised by that.

Dakin cheats twice. Irwin finds out both times. He tells him to take a shower the first time and kicks him out and doesn’t take his calls for  
two weeks the second time.

It doesn’t happen again.

Dakin didn’t know what it was like to be afraid. Now he does.

*

Irwin makes breakfast Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s a Thursday when Dakin realizes he hasn’t been home in over two months. Irwin’s wearing his fourteenth (fortieth) new pair of glasses this year (this is also the time that Dakin realizes they’ve been together all year) and he’s frowning at the crossword section.

Dakin is absolutely terrified. Irwin asks him to pass the milk.

It’s surprisingly easy to run to the toilet and throw up his guts. He spends the day in a haze, doesn’t understand a word of the meeting with the client, screws up three files that are supposed to be done by the end of the day, screams at his secretary, drops coffee on his third best shirt, refuses to take a call from Irwin and is stupendously wasted by seven o’clock.

Even by his standards, that’s a special kind of terrible. He crashes on a friend’s couch and wakes up at 5 am and stumbles home, waking Irwin up by breaking a lamp in his living room.

Irwin just blinks at him blearily and goes back to bed.

It takes Dakin ten minutes to fall asleep.

*

They have a loud and proud shouting match on the night before Christmas Eve. Mrs. Sanborn is on Dakin’s side. Unfortunately, someone else calls the police and they are read a lecture on decent behavior during the holiday season.

It’s a lowering moment. They get drunk and spend the night on the living room rug and Irwin smiles at him, shy and careful like all those years ago and Dakin knows, better than he’s ever known before, that this is real.


End file.
